What is the difference between GHA and RA (right ascension)? It sounds like the same thing to me. Is it?

The two coordinates are similar in that they measure east-west angular distances, but beyond that they are quite different.

The first difference is that GHA is an angular distance relative to the terrestrial prime meridian. The GHA of a star changes throughout the day, but the GHA of a geostationary satellite is constant.

RA, however, is measured relative to the celestial prime meridian or first point of Aries. The RA of a star barely changes at all during the day (it may change over a period of centuries because stars do move).

The second difference is the direction in which they are measured. GHA, like all hour angles, is measured westward from the Greenwich meridian to the body---think of an hour angle as representing the amount of time since a celestial body has passed a given point. RA is measured eastward (probably because that's the direction angles are measured in in righthanded coordinate systems).

The last distance is that mariners don't use RA; astronomers and maybe rocket scientists do

Quote:

Also, is the celestial meridian (defined as the line extending from the North Celestial pole through the vernal equinox to the South Celestial Pole), the same thing as the Aries meridian?

There are many celestial meridians and one celestial prime meridian. Aries, a constellation, doesn't really have one meridian, but the first point of Aries does, and it is indeed the point where the celestial equator crosses the celestial prime meridian.

Thanks a lot. So, does the RA have more of an association with SHA then (which is measured from the Meridian of Aries)? This seems to be academic anyway, if it's not being used by navigators. Now I have to wrap my head around all these meridians....(prime, Aries, geo, celestial...not to speak of the ecliptic etc.) Very confusing, but fascinating. Wish I started this long ago.
Those navigators of old were a very clever lot. Puts most of us to shame.

By choosing to post the reply above you agree to the rules you agreed to when joining Sailnet.
Click Here to view those rules.

Register Now

In order to be able to post messages on the SailNet Community forums, you must first register. Please enter your desired user name, your email address and other required details in the form below.Please note: After entering 3 characters a list of Usernames already in use will appear and the list will disappear once a valid Username is entered.

User Name:

Password

Please enter a password for your user account. Note that passwords are case-sensitive.

Password:

Confirm Password:

Email Address

Please enter a valid email address for yourself.

Email Address:

Log-in

User Name

Remember Me?

Password

Human Verification

In order to verify that you are a human and not a spam bot, please enter the answer into the following box below based on the instructions contained in the graphic.